UPDATE: Girl questioned in Har-Ber gun scare not at school Friday

STAFF PHOTO JASON IVESTER Springdale Police guard the main entrance Thursday at Har-Ber High School. The school was placed on “high alert status” following a report of a student with a gun. No weapon was found following the lockdown and a 15-year-old girl was detained for questioning.
STAFF PHOTO JASON IVESTER Springdale Police guard the main entrance Thursday at Har-Ber High School. The school was placed on “high alert status” following a report of a student with a gun. No weapon was found following the lockdown and a 15-year-old girl was detained for questioning.

SPRINGDALE -- 10:40 a.m. Friday update: A 15-year-old girl did not return to class at Har-Ber High School on Friday after she was taken to the police station for questioning Thursday, said Rick Schaeffer, district spokesman.

Students at at the school were locked in their classrooms for an hour Thursday after district and school administrators received a reports from two stdunets about a gun on the campus, said Lt. Derek Hudson, spokesman for the Springdale Police Department, on Thursday. The school went on “high alert” just before 2 p.m.

Officers searched the campus for a gun but didn’t find one, Hudson said. No one was injured, but several students were questioned and the 15-year-old girl was taken to the Police Department for further questioning. No one was permitted to leave or enter the school during the incident.

Any discipline of the 15-year-old will come from the police first, Schaeffer said. He said he can't disclose any discipline from the school or district administrators if that happens.


Original story: Students at Har-Ber High School were locked in their classrooms for an hour Thursday after district and school administrators received a report of a gun on campus.

No weapon was found, authorities said.

The school went on "high alert" just before 2 p.m. after two students reported a girl had a gun on campus, said Lt. Derek Hudson, spokesman for the Springdale Police Department.

Officers searched the campus for a gun but didn't find one, Hudson said. No one was injured, but several students were questioned and a 15-year-old girl was taken to the Police Department for further questioning. No one was permitted to leave or enter the school during the incident.

"There may be charges; there may not," Hudson said. "We don't know."

A text message was sent to parents telling them the school was on alert, he said.

Some parents arrived at the school before the lockdown ended at 3:15 p.m. Their cars lined the roadway into the front parking lot. They stood in a group speaking with each other, refusing to comment on the situation to reporters.

Inside the school, police officers checked students' backpacks and bags, said Lindsay Will, a senior at Har-Ber High, in a text message. She said she and her classmates were scared during the alert.

Jared Cleveland, deputy superintendent for personnel, said school officials followed district procedures for the "high alert" situation. He stopped short of calling the situation a lockdown, a more serious measure taken if there were a shooter on campus.

"You have to take every threat as if it were real, even if it's not," he said.

Hellstern Middle School is adjacent and to the west of the high school, while Young Elementary School is to the east in the Har-Ber Meadows subdivision. Neither school was put on an alert status, Hudson said.

Whether the 15-year-old girl will be back at school today depends on what investigators learn while questioning her, Cleveland said.

"Until their investigation is complete, I think everything's on hold in that regard," he said.

NW News on 02/28/2014

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